Mapping Shape Geometry and Emotions Using Fuzzy Logic

An important aspect of artifact/product design is defining the aesthetic and emotional value. The success of a product is not only dependent on it’s functionality but also on the emotional value that it creates to its user. However, if several designers are faced with a task to create an object that would evoke a certain emotion (aggressive, soft, heavy, friendly, etc.) each would most likely interpret the emotion with a different set of geometric features and shapes. In this paper the authors propose an approach to formalize the relationship between geometric information of a 3D object and the intended emotion using fuzzy logic. To achieve this; 3D objects (shapes) created by design engineering students to match a set of words/emotions were analyzed. The authors identified geometric information as inputs of the fuzzy model and developed a set of fuzzy if/then rules to map the relationships between the fuzzy sets on each input premise and the output premise. In our case the output premise of the fuzzy logic model is the level of belonging to the design context (emotion). An evaluation of how users perceived the shapes was conducted to validate the fuzzy logic model and showed a high correlation between the fuzzy logic model and user perception.